“As in the days of the Soviet Gosplan, Putin has set unrealistic goals”

VWas there a single example of Russia's technological and industrial lag behind the United States, Europe and now China? Just take that of civil aeronautics. Its president, Vladimir Putin, is puffing his chest out, but since the fall of the USSR, his country has been incapable of producing reliable commercial aircraft in large numbers – let alone exportable ones. While Russian territory extends over eleven time zones and air transport is vital for it, 95% of Russians fly by Boeing or Airbus.

The government has been trumpeting for years its desire to put an end to this dependence, without shouting too much from the rooftops that it is forced to do so by the sanctions hitting Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The public holding company OAK announced, Monday, November 25, “take direct control of program management” of the aircraft manufacturers Yakovlev and Tupolev, and the dismissal of their bosses. The company must “substitute imports” et “launch mass production of domestic civil airliners within a tight and unprecedented time frame”.

Cannibalization of old devices

As in the days of the Soviet Gosplan, Putin has set unrealistic goals. While Boeing and Airbus cannot keep pace due to tensions on their « supply chain »how would an industry under sanctions keep up? Moscow fails to develop its Sukhoi 100-seat SJ-100 plane in large quantities; Irkut's MC-21, which is supposed to compete with the A320 and the Boeing 737, is not certified; a few Tupolev 214s leave the factories, but their design dates from the end of the 1980s; and he had to abandon the development of the long-haul CR919 with the Chinese.

However, there is urgency. The average age of the fleet of 1,000 aircraft is increasing (14.6 years) and its maintenance is increasingly difficult due to a lack of spare parts and software updates. To date, 34 of the 66 A320-A321neo are inoperable, according to the newspaper Kommersant. At the rate of cannibalization of old aircraft to keep others in flying condition, half will be grounded in a year, calculates the firm Oliver Wyman. Although there has been no disaster, incidents have increased over the past two and a half years. Aeronautics is a very high-tech sector where safety takes precedence over all other considerations. It is easier to replace Danone yogurts or McDonald's hamburgers than Airbus planes.